Vistara to ramp up manpower, improve overall services, says CEO Vinod Kannan

Vistara plans to significantly ramp up its staff strength to a total of 5,000 by the end of this year as the full service carrier focuses on increasing capacity utilisation, expanding fleet and further improving overall services.

Currently, the airline has around 4,000 people. After being significantly hit by the coronavirus pandemic, including the third wave that negatively impacted air traffic which was on the recovery path late last year, the airline industry is again seeing an improvement in traffic numbers.

Against this backdrop, Vistara CEO Vinod Kannan, in a not-so-common move, last week, admitted that the airline did not live up to customers' expectations and assured that steps are being taken to address the "gaps on a war footing".

"We wanted to make sure that we explain our side of the story... In February what we have seen is that demand has come back and people have started to travel and I think with cases going down, this, touch wood, will be the trend for the future," Kannan told PTI in an interview on Tuesday.

While emphasising that the airline is working on a multi-pronged strategy, he said that currently, it operates more flights compared to that in the pre-COVID period.

''We have about 220 to 250 departures a day. Since we have hit that momentum, (we have to look at) how do we continue to grow and how to make sure that the commitments we have made remain as we scale up. It also involves engaging our staff, partners...,'' he noted.

The airline, which currently has 50 planes, aims to have 70 planes by the end of 2023 after taking into account some aircraft that will be returned to lessors.

Vistara, a joint venture between Tatas and Singapore Airlines, started hiring for operational roles sometime in October last year before the third coronavirus wave.